Samsung is making a big song and dance about its top-end phones like the new Galaxy S22, showing off all the fun and useful features these devices have. However, if you can’t afford one of these premium phones, you might assume that you won’t be able to enjoy these tools.
That’s not the case, however, as many of the cheaper Samsung phones also bring many of the great features shown on the Galaxy S devices. So if you buy a Galaxy A phone, like the mid-range Samsung Galaxy A53 or even the budget Galaxy A13, you’ll be able to enjoy many of these features.
To give you an idea of some of the great Samsung Galaxy S22 features you can use on cheaper Samsung phones, we’ll now walk you through six of our favorites.
1. Single take mode
With the Samsung Galaxy S20 series we saw the launch of Single Take, a mode that makes taking photos much easier and it continues to be a big feature of subsequent Galaxy S devices.
With the mode, you capture video of your subject, moving and shooting from different angles, and then the AI selects the best stills from them and processes them for you.
This way you can capture an amazing picture whether you know much about photography or not.
Although it was a key selling point for Samsung Galaxy S phones, it’s actually available for Galaxy A phones as well. This way, you can take those super easy snaps whether you paid for the top-of-the-line Samsung phone or not.
Admittedly, the AI isn’t quite as smart on the budget phones, so the images don’t match those on the S-series phones, but it’s still a great feature that you don’t have to pay a lot for.
2. Device Care
When you’re spending a lot of money on an expensive phone, you want it to last – but depending on how you use it, that might not always be easy to achieve.
Luckily, Samsung phones offer a way to help with that. In the Battery section of your settings mode you will find the Device care menu. Here you can see how healthy your device is with a simple score that lets you know how well the phone is optimized for longevity, and you can also try to increase that score.
The menu gives you options to optimize memory, storage and battery to ensure your phone runs as healthy as possible.
Even if you haven’t paid top dollar for a Samsung phone, this mode can help — after all, you want your device to last a few years, whether you paid $400 or $1,400. This menu appears for all Galaxy devices, not just the S series devices, allowing you to improve the way your phone works.
3. The 120 Hz display
Samsung was one of the first companies to introduce high refresh rate displays on its smartphones, with some Galaxy S phones using 120Hz screens ahead of competitors.
High refresh rate screens make motion appear smoother, giving you a smoother viewing experience whether you’re scrolling through social media or playing games.
It’s a feature we initially only saw in top-end phones – the aforementioned S20 was one of the first to use it – but now you don’t have to pay a lot for a premium device to enjoy it.
Now that the feature has been around for a while, we’ve seen more and more mid-range and budget phones adopt it. In the case of Samsung, that’s partly true, as some of its budget devices now have 120Hz displays.
These include the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G and A73 – these have 120Hz screens but won’t cost you as much as the top-end Galaxy S alternatives. So if you like screens with smooth movements, you can get one without paying much.
4. Adaptive loading
A great example of a feature first introduced in Samsung’s top-end phones is Adaptive Charging – this mode protects your battery’s longevity by using AI to determine when to charge quickly and when to slow down . With it, you can leave your phone plugged in forever without completely ruining the battery.
Initially, this was only available on top-end phones in the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note ranges, but recently it’s been appearing in cheaper phones as well.
You’ll need to use a Samsung charger for this feature to work, which we should point out you don’t get on certain recent Galaxy A phones. You’ll have to buy one online if you don’t own one – and it’s worth it because in the long run this could make your phone last longer.
5. Food mode
While Single Take is the mode Samsung is showing off the most, it’s not the brand’s only useful method of taking pictures if you don’t want to use the default photo mode.
Another of these is the Food mode, which despite the name doesn’t have to be used only for food. You can select an area of focus while the rest of the shot has some depth of field. You can pick an animal, pattern or of course food and make it stand out from the shot. The mode also edits the snap with a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of saturation to make it pop more.
This mode is not only useful on Samsung Galaxy S phones but also appears on A series devices. Since the cheaper phones don’t have as powerful cameras, it’s arguably even more handy on these devices to ensure you’re getting the best possible snaps.
6. Special color
Once you’ve snapped a photo, it can be fun to edit it to make it really social media friendly, and Samsung’s top-end phones give you the ability to do that.
The main function here is spot color. If you use them in Samsung’s Gallery app, you can choose a color that will instantly change to monochrome on the photo. This allows you to create some pretty artistic masterpieces if you play around with it.
As you can probably tell from the title of this article, this is another feature available on both Galaxy A devices and Galaxy S devices. We’ve used it before to get some pretty artistic shots, particularly when making the background of a selfie black and white (but leaving the subject, us, colored).
Thanks to that and the camera modes we’ve already looked at, if you’re a prolific Insta-poster, a Galaxy A phone is just as good as a Galaxy S.